


Other Duties Owing

by wrabbit



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Bottom Francis Crozier, M/M, he's cranky, the epaulettes stay on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:41:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29114703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrabbit/pseuds/wrabbit
Summary: A beach, a booty call.
Relationships: Thomas Blanky/Francis Crozier
Comments: 16
Kudos: 27
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	Other Duties Owing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for The Terror Rarepair Week 2021, Day 2: "Beechey Island / Duty Owing"

Thomas seeks out a good southerly slope, lights his pipe, and lays himself out in the sun. He spares a care for the AB boys toiling down on the beach, and then casts it aside with his hat. 

It's chill when he first lies down and shivers on the rocks, but it doesn't take long for the sun to warm his face. It's so welcome and the air is so still that Thomas pulls his shirt up to expose his belly to the sky. He thinks back to other, younger days - cooking in the tropics on sweaty planks, all shoulder to shoulder like rows of skinny eels stretched out to dry.

He's not quite dozing, puffing just enough to keep his pipe lit when he hears movement on the rocks, a squeaking and a crunching, approaching slowly. He knows what Francis Crozier sounds like, plodding up the rocky slope, crosswise like he's just happened by Thomas while out for a stroll. 

A shadow crosses Thomas' shoulder and he squints up into his captain's face, haloed by a yellow spring sun.

"What in the world are you doing up here?"

Thomas laughs and waves a hand, urging Francis out of his light. He's already catching a chill in the man's shadow.

"Don't you have ice to master?" Francis says, and moves to take a seat near Thomas.

"Nope!" Just a bay full of slush, melting fast. 

"Boys to mind, then," Francis says, as if there isn't a load of officers running the ABs around the beach. They're wrapping up for the day. Thomas can hear a fiddle winding up on the breeze. 

"They're minded. What brings a captain off his ship for that matter?"

"Terror's deserted," Francis starts, and Thomas is grinning at the peevish cant to his voice before Francis can say another word.

"Jopson is off helping Hoar," Francis continues, raising and then lowering his voice to be heard over Thomas laughing at him. "We'll be underway in the morning."

Thomas hums. One more night in their little winter retreat, and then onward - to summer, and the passage. 

"I suppose Sir John will be serving some prize piece of gristle for the celebration tonight." 

"No doubt."

"Suppose there will be songs. Poems. Is it a Sunday, as well?"

Thomas rubs his stomach and cranes his neck to see Francis' face when he groans. 

He's sitting up with his forearms slung over his knees, frowning down at the ships. He tosses a chagrined look at Thomas, twisting his mouth around a smile. 

Thomas blinks his eyes shut again and sighs into the sun. He listens to Francis shuffle and tap his pipe on a rock. 

A minute later the smell of fresh tobacco wafts over Thomas, mouthwatering even though he's just had his smoke, and his stomach rumbles.

"You've gone soft," he says. "Not very sailor like, laid away in your captain's cabin. If it's a poking you want, I can offer you a seat right here." 

He pats a thigh, and laughs when Francis backhands it. 

They're both too old to rut dry and exposed to all above and below on the ground, but Thomas' prick twitches anyway when Francis squeezes and shakes his leg. 

It warms Thomas' old salted heart to think of Francis sulking on his quiet ship, writing in his journal and waiting for Thomas like a good little sea wife. 

"Maybe I'll visit your cabin tonight and enjoy some proper privacy while the rest of yous are being entertained over on Erebus."

He doesn't mean anything by it, and Francis only sucks on his pipe. Something's weighing on him, has been since they set sail. More than his usual if he's just left his ship and hiked up around the bay in search of Thomas' fair company.

Thomas pushes himself upright and buttons up, the sun no longer so warming as all that, while Francis brushes off the seat of his trousers. They turn toward the ships, and all serene, shimmering water where they once played football. 

"Francis."

Francis turns. He squints curiously when Thomas doesn't have anything to say. Just an encouraging smile for his dozy face. He knocks his shoulder against Francis when he passes to make him stumble on the shale. 

"Let's go."

Thomas is settled in his own berth, in fact, drifting off to distant song, and not so pleased to be startled awake by a sharp rap to the cabin wall. He squints an eye open and is unsurprised to see the captain's steward sliding open his door without a by-your-leave. 

"What?" he barks.

"Captain Crozier has returned from Erebus, sir."

Thomas is pushing himself up, automatically responding to Jopson's no-nonsense tone like it’s an order before he thinks better of it. The prospect of getting fully dressed again has him hesitating. 

"Eh, does he need me for something?"

"Not as I'm aware," Jopson says. 

Thomas rubs his face, his tired eyes. "You... he..." He glares up at Jopson's placid face, the imp. 

"Crozier's back," he says when Jopson makes no move, either to help or depart. 

"Yes, sir. He wants you to know that he's - "

"That he's back from Erebus, yeah," Thomas finishes for him. "And he sent you to tell me that, did he?"

"That is one of my duties, sir."

Thomas shakes his head and bites down on a smile, not wanting to give the man the satisfaction. 

For a long time he took Jopson to be a bit of a stuffed-up prig, more suited to the ballroom service, and didn't understand how he and Francis could possibly get on so well. Now he knows the man better and understands him to be a maniac. Perfectly suited to managing Francis. 

He pulls on his coat and shoves his night shirt down his trousers. 

"What are you on about," he says, shooting a glare at Jopson who watches him dress like he's been charged to see Thomas neatened as well as knocked up. "Barging in on a man after he's had his grog and a lie down."

"I did knock," Jopson says. He is silent for a beat and adds, "I detected a note of urgency in the request."

Thomas does grin at that, wheezing for a moment over his boots. He doesn't bother to lace all the way up.

Thomas discovers he has a second wind in him after all, with a glass of whisky in hand, and being only recently near to nodding off over his supper. 

Feeling particularly generous, Thomas decides that he will allow the captain to prattle on about Sir John and his snobbery and Commander Fitzjames and his general person for no longer than forty five minutes. 

And despite the long day and the ceremonious feast, Francis is bright eyed and in good form. Thomas demands a recounting of every detail of Le Vesconte's intimate encounter with the pudding until they are both teary eyed. 

He almost doesn't want it to end, eager to hear more about how the Erebus officers are coping, but it's getting late and needs must. Thomas had been tucked up in bed and quite happy to be there only an hour previous.

"Alright," he says, slapping the table to make it a declaration. "Let's get your kit off before I scurry on out of here."

Francis coughs on his whisky. "You missed your call!" he gripes, wiping his mouth. "Anchor’s up."

Thomas hums. 

Francis hesitates for so long that Thomas is already rolling his eyes when he grimaces and adds, "I'm really very tired."

Thomas thinks that if he were a more sensitive man, more vulnerable to the twisty winds and draughts of his finer feelings, a man more like Francis perhaps, he'd take offense to the surly mug Francis is sporting. Might even flounce off and cry about it. 

"Right now," he says. "There's men fucking over crates of tinned tomatoes. Dry, right? Kicking rats around. But you'd prefer to fuss on about how the command is so tiresome, and so lonesome, and you cry yourself to sleep at night in your fancy linen sheets, is that it?"

Francis' red-eyed squint grows increasingly foreboding. "That's right," he growls.

"Sit here and yawp on about the commander's pretty watercolors until you can't even frig yourself off?"

"Sounds wonderful." 

"Right." Thomas pushes himself back from the table and stands up. "Come on," he says. 

He marches around to the captain’s berth, side-stepping the arm Francis throws out to bar his way. 

"I'm starting without you!" Thomas calls, waving off an outraged shout, and he dumps his coat on the floor. 

When he turns around, shirt loose, boots off, Francis hasn't unfastened a single brass button, but he is standing. He’s left his drink behind on the table, at least. 

Thomas steps in for a kiss and smiles against Francis' lips, pressed in a firm line in defiance of Thomas' cheerful assault. Thomas has to lean on Francis' shoulder and laugh until Francis breaks as well. 

He thinks of Jopson, suddenly, drying his eyes. "You'd better watch out for that steward of yours," he says. "I was near to dream when he tossed my curtains open earlier tonight."

Francis' eyes roll up and Thomas thinks that he is blushing. "Jopson is very..."

Thomas leans back and raises an eyebrow. 

"He's very much an early bird."

"Up and at 'em, is it?"

Thomas is laughing as Francis shoves him bodily back into his berth, shouting at him to be quiet before Jopson does come and see what all the ruckus is about. 

"Always nice to see you," Thomas says when Francis wiggles his trousers down and bends over without so much as a proper kiss. He tosses Francis' frock tails over his back and bunches up the shirt to reveal a milky white rump, which he massages appreciatively. 

And then, "Oh, come on, take your bloody gold tassels off, at least!"

"Don't want you to forget who you're fucking," Francis grunts. 

"Not likely to," Thomas replies, rocking their hips together.

"Devil's whore."

"Blowsy wench."

"Get on with it!"

It's old habits, now, for all that it's been a while, for Thomas to help himself to the lantern and get both of them slicked up. He's not in a hurry himself, not when they're finally at it, but Francis is an impatient bastard at the best of times and he's well-prepared and grouchy by the time Thomas can get his drawers down and his toes arranged behind Francis' boots on the planks.

Francis is glaring over his damn tassels and fit to snap by the time Thomas has himself situated, and because he doesn't take orders regarding this particular matter he shoves his prick into Francis before he can make it one. 

Francis' expels his vexation on a groan and he leans over the curved wall of the berth, taking a white knuckled grip on the edge. 

It cannot be precisely comfortable but he doesn't complain in the time it takes Thomas to gather his bearings, helping himself with his hand against Francis' on the wooden frame.

It's wonderful, and Thomas grins to hear the captain moan in his stupid, nice dress uniform and his gold buttons and his stiff boots, with only his lovely, freckled ass out, slapping against Thomas' hips and hugging him tight. 

"God damn you... the devil's so funny?" Francis shuffles his boots, forcing Thomas to pick up his stocking foot or be trod on. Thomas groans at the slide and shift deeper, curling forward - as good as it’s going to get if Francis won’t kick his drawers off.

"Settle down," Thomas wheezes when Francis grunts and pushes back so that he slips out. He pets him over his wool coat.

It's not much longer for him, and he wraps Francis in a bear hug when he's done, perfectly content. He can feel Francis' sleeve rubbing against his wrist as he finishes himself off. 

There are still two glasses of whisky on the table: Francis' mostly full, Thomas' not so much. He throws it back and sets it off to the side, wishing he'd tipped up a little earlier but not so needful that he'll stick around for another pour. 

Not being so drowsy, and not with Francis leaking in his dress uniform and still in some sort of mood.

Francis himself parks his body at the table with barely a wince. He'd look quite the part, if it weren't for his red nose and tufty hair and twisted shirt peeking out of his trousers on one side. 

"I'll send Jopson in, shall I?" Thomas says, pleased with his handiwork. He still hasn't laced up his boots, planning kick them off once more and pass out. "Let him know you're back. Get you all shined up and brushed out again?"

Francis only scowls over his glass, always so testy after Thomas has gratified him. He slaps the lintel on his way out. 

He's near to his own berth when he almost runs headlong into the sprightly assistant to the devil himself, swinging around the other way with a book under one arm and just as startled to slam into Thomas. 

"Can't you make a noise!" Thomas complains. He catches a breath. "The captain is back in his cabin," he announces, as if delivering a message. 

Jopson narrows his eyes at him. "Does he need something?"

Thomas hums. "I have no idea." He pats the steward's shoulder and edges around him. "Best get those boots off him before he passes out in them, though," he suggests.

**Author's Note:**

> Blanky/Jopson fic that may be read as a sequel or prequel: [Understumbling Stewards](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29360103).
> 
> whatifisaid-no on tumblr!


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